For this data collection, information on police-citizen
encounters was collected to explore the peacekeeping functions of the
police and their handling of encounters with mentally ill persons. The
data were gathered for part or all of 270 shifts through observations
by researchers riding in police cars in two Chicago police districts
during a 14-month period in 1980-1981. In Part 1 (Shift Level),
information was collected once per shift on the general level of
activity during the shift and the observer's perceptions of
emotions/att... (more info)

For this data collection, information on police-citizen
encounters was collected to explore the peacekeeping functions of the
police and their handling of encounters with mentally ill persons. The
data were gathered for part or all of 270 shifts through observations
by researchers riding in police cars in two Chicago police districts
during a 14-month period in 1980-1981. In Part 1 (Shift Level),
information was collected once per shift on the general level of
activity during the shift and the observer's perceptions of
emotions/attitudes displayed by the police officers he/she
observed. The file also contains, for each of the 270 shifts,
information about the personal characteristics, work history, and
working relationships of the police officers observed. Part 2
(Encounter Level) contains detailed information on each police-citizen
encounter including its nature, location, police actions and/or
responses, citizens involved, and their characteristics and
behavior. A unique and consistent shift identification number is
attached to each encounter so that information about police officer
characteristics from Part 1 may be matched with Part 2. There are
1,382 police-citizen encounters involving 2,555 citizens in this
collection.

Access Notes

One or more data files in this study are set up in a non-standard format, such as card image format. Users
may need help converting these files before they can be used for analysis.

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Universe:
Police shifts and police-citizen interactions in two
districts of Chicago.

Data Types:
observational data

Data Collection Notes:

(1) Missing data were recoded to 9s by the Principal
Investigator and can mean either actual missing data or unknown or
inapplicable data. (2) There is a hierarchical, nested relationship
between the shift and encounter levels of analysis. That is, the shift
level is higher than the encounter level, with a given shift involving
any number of encounters. Encounters are "nested" within shifts. These
two levels of data have not been integrated into a single file.
However, the information necessary to create such a file exists in the
identification system used. Each shift was given a unique ID
number. Each encounter has two ID numbers, a shift ID and an encounter
ID.

Methodology

Sample:
Observations were conducted during all hours of the day
during a 14-month period in 1980-1981. Evenings and weekends were
oversampled to obtain a maximum amount of data in a minimum amount of
time. All types of police-citizen encounters were observed and coded
irrespective of any mental health component.

Data Source:

written observations

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:1985-10-09

Version History:

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 3 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

2006-01-12 All files were removed from dataset 3 and flagged as study-level files, so that they will accompany all downloads.

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